[NOTICE] This repo is temporarily only accepting bug-fixes.

[iHiD]

Over the last few months there have been a number of passionate debates in this repository about new exercises and changes to the existing exercises. Maintainers often have very opposed views and cannot reach a consensus. This has lead to lots of frustration from people who all want to make Exercism better, but disagree on how that should be done.

This is a clear sign that the product team have not done enough to communicate guidelines around how exercises should be structured and how this repository should be structured. The reason for this is that the product team don't know how exercises should be structured or how the data in this repository should be structured.

This repository (and exercises on Exercism in general) have evolved organically without much structure or thought. For V1, this was generally ok, but since V2, where exercises are part of learning pathways and where everything is a bit more complicated in general, this has now become a real problem. We in the product team therefore need to go away and do some proper work around understanding how exercises should evolve in Exercism. Once we've got some clarity on that, we can then start to put together some clarity around how this repository should work, and everyone can move forward, hopefully without the uncomfortable conversations that have been ongoing recently.

Therefore, for the time being, we are closing this repository to any new exercises, or any changes-of-substance to the canonical data. We will still accept bugfixes (if tests are wrong) and improvements to the copy around exercises, as long as they do not alter the substance of an exercise. If you would like to add a new exercise to your track, please do it as a track-specific exercise for now, and we can discuss generalising it into this repository further down the line.

I want to finish with a personal apology that I haven't realised this a bit earlier and stepped in before people ended up clashing over things. I'm excited about getting this to a really good place and making both the Tracks the best they can be, and ensuring that maintainers lives are as easy as possible.

[kytrinyx]

If you would like to add a new exercise to your track, please do it as a track-specific exercise for now, and we can discuss generalising it into this repository further down the line.

I want to second this. We are absolutely open to the tracks evolving!

Once we have a better handle on the product side of this, we can start working on generalizing any of the experiments that end up in individual tracks.

Of course: if there's an exercise that goes into one track, there's no reason why maintainers can't collaborate to put the exercise in multiple repos, but still at a track-specific level.

❤️ Thanks @iHiD

[sshine]

for the time being, we are closing this repository to any new exercises, or any changes-of-substance to the canonical data. We will still accept bugfixes (if tests are wrong) and improvements to the copy around exercises, as long as they do not alter the substance of an exercise

As I have noticed that PRs have started rolling in again (hooray), and that all these could be placed in the categories allowed in the above sentence, I assume that the problem-specifications repo is still in a state of emergency, but that some contributors increasingly send in improvements.

We in the product team therefore need to go away and do some proper work around understanding how exercises should evolve in Exercism. Once we've got some clarity on that, we can then start to put together some clarity around how this repository should work

I think a status update is due soon, as it's been 11 weeks since this statement was made.

I have some points that I'd like to make about organizing and voluntary work, but I'm unsure where to place them as I don't want to turn this notice into a discussion for which it was not intended. Perhaps, as part of making a status update you could also provide a place for a discussion. I think having one will show the amount of good will even among people who have disagreed about particulars.

[iHiD]

Thanks @sshine. We're aiming to release an update this week on how we're planning on evolving tracks in general terms, and a project we'll be launching to address many of the problems that have emerged.

[wolf99]

Is there any indication yet for when this repo might accept exercises again?